The word pickle is related to a similar-sounding Dutch word, pekel, meaning “brine.” In the 1400s, a pickle was a spicy sauce. Soon the word came to refer to the salty or acidic used to preserve foods, and later to the foods themselves preserved in it, such as pickled cucumbers. The old Dutch phrase in de pekel zitten literally means “to sit in the pickle brine.” The English phrase to be in a pickle used to mean “to be quite inebriated,” as in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Bookshop|Amazon) where one character says to the other: I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last! meaning “I’ve been so drunk!” This is part of a complete episode.
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...
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